Network Function Virtualization is a term or a name of a proposed architecture of telecom services as published by the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) in a series of documents available from the ETSI website. The purpose of NFV is separate the software from the hardware. NFV uses generic hardware platform and software adapted for the generic hardware platform. Thus, NFV creates a network much more flexible and dynamic than a legacy communication network. In NFV-based networks, a service is based on one or more virtual network functions or features (VNF) that can be executed on any generic hardware processing facility. Therefore, VNFs are installed, removed, and moved between hardware facilities, much more easily, less costly and thus, more frequently.
The NFV-based network is managed by a software program including an NFV orchestration (NFV-O) component. Typically, the NFV-O is responsible for installing, activating, and deactivating VNFs and VNF instances, as well as other functions of the NFV-based network. If two NFV-based networks should be connected, their respective NFV-Os should coordinate their functionality and activities. An NFV-O therefore manages in a typical processing unit a plurality of VNFs of various services provided by different VNF vendors.
The NFV-O layer is typically made of a plurality of NFV-O modules, where each module is responsible for a particular part of the network (domain or territory). Each NFV-O module is responsible for optimizing the deployment of VNFs and VNF instances and the allocation of network resources to the various VNFs and VNF instances within its domain (territory). The NFV-O deployment, that is the structure of network domains and their respective NFV-O modules, is optimized according to the network usage, however, deviations from the regular network activity may happen. For example, when an NFV-O module runs out of resources it may be allocated additional resources from near-by NFV-O modules. This process deviates the NFV-O deployment from the optimized topology and consequently may decrease the ability of the NFV-O modules to optimize the VNF deployment and resource allocation in run-time. There is thus a need for addressing these and/or other issues associated with the prior art.